


How Dare You Love Me (Like You've Never Known Fear)

by Neffectual



Series: Decade & One [1]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Drabble, M/M, Medication, Mental Health Issues, Romance, Sappy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-30
Updated: 2019-03-30
Packaged: 2019-12-26 14:32:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18284210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neffectual/pseuds/Neffectual
Summary: There’s something about Roxas in setting sunlight that says he’s been lucky to have the day with him, that he’s been lucky to get to see the end of a day with his lover, and he doesn’t know why, but it makes his heart lurch in his chest with an urge to reach out and grasp his hand, to pull him close and anchor him, in case he should suddenly disappear.





	How Dare You Love Me (Like You've Never Known Fear)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Thirteenthesiac](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thirteenthesiac/gifts).



> Clunky title is from "Home to Me" by Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, which this was also written to
> 
>  
> 
> To Rae, my Roxas, my everything - to love hard-fought for and won. You've always had my heart.

There’s something he’ll always love about watching Roxas in the setting sun. Axel’s never sure if it’s the way the light catches his hair and turns it every colours from peroxide-worn white to orange-red as he moves, or if it’s something else. There’s something about Roxas in setting sunlight that says he’s been lucky to have the day with him, that he’s been lucky to get to see the end of a day with his lover, and he doesn’t know why, but it makes his heart lurch in his chest with an urge to reach out and grasp his hand, to pull him close and anchor him, in case he should suddenly disappear. When they met, Axel couldn’t stand the shortarse know-it-all, he told himself, the one who was somehow always better than him, whose every obstacle melted out of the way, whose way was so brilliantly, brightly clear. But even then, he was captivating, Axel can admit now; he always caught the eye, always dragged Axel’s attention from whatever he was supposed to be doing, be it paying attention in a lecture or just trying to get a cup of coffee. Roxas makes him trip over his feet, always has, and Axel both loves and hates that all at once.

 

The first time they’d kissed, all drunken college party bravado from him, and Roxas somehow more measured, more able to cope with what might come after, Axel had lost any trace of colour seconds later, elbowed his way to the front of the bathroom queue, and thrown up loudly enough to put anyone off talking to him for the next couple of weeks. But when he slid out, sheepishly, wiping water from where he’d splashed his face, Roxas was leaning against the wall, glass of water in hand. “You didn’t have to – “ he’d said, and Roxas had cut him off. “I’ll always come after you.” When Axel went to drop out, it had been Roxas with an arm around his waist, with a pleading in his eyes, with a downturn to his mouth. Axel shook him off and looked at him, daring Roxas to ask why he was making such a stupid decision based off one critique on a piece that, Axel had said himself, wasn’t his best work.

“It’s just one opinion,” Roxas said, with a shrug. Axel hadn’t known how to answer that, how to scream that one opinion, one person who didn’t love him, was just as painful as knowing that the whole world didn’t. He hadn’t known how to say that he’d had a meds change, that he wasn’t feeling himself, that he hadn’t been sleeping properly. He hadn’t known how not to grab Roxas, and tell him all the horrible truths that seemed to want to spill from his lips all the time. He just shook his head, instead.

“Sleep on it,” Roxas offered, and as if he could see the horror in Axel’s eyes at the thought of the narrow, unmade bed he slept on in a house full of strangers, added, “at mine.”

 

Sex with Roxas was… whenever they talked about previous lovers, Roxas changed the subject, and Axel wondered if it was possible he could be the only one. If it was possible no one else had seen the burning ball of potential that Roxas was, seen all the things he could become, and wanted him. Roxas fucked like there’d never be another day, like there was nothing shameful about arching your back and begging for more so loud that the people in the adjoining rooms hammered on the walls for them to keep it down. He kissed like he never knew if he’d get to do it again; slowly, mapping every second like he might need to live off the memory alone for years, maybe even decades. And Axel worshipped him for it; the easy freedom with which he gave his body, the lack of self-consciousness, the seemingly effortless ability to know exactly which buttons to press, even for the first time. Sex with Roxas was like staying up late enough that you eventually saw the sunrise – light, to dark, and then back to light as if the dark had only been a figment of your imagination.

 

Axel didn’t take well to being trusted. He didn’t stay faithful, didn’t keep hold of Roxas like he had been asked to do, like he wanted to – he let his legs carry him where they wanted, let the alcohol find him in another bed, with another stranger, come dawn. But when he came back to Roxas in the early hours of the morning, Roxas would be sleeping, quiet and small and so breakable that Axel could feel the victorious post-fuck cigarette already turning to the ashes of loss on his tongue. Without saying a word, without even opening his eyes, Roxas told him exactly what he thought of Axel’s behaviour, and while he never said a word about it, it underscored everything in their lives until Axel could bear the chasm of silence no longer, and left.

 

Being with Roxas was a warm day, choosing to sit in the sun and soak it up, maybe cooling down in the sea or the pool, but knowing the sun would warm you up again. When Axel walked away, it was like being dunked in icy water before being left on a windy clifftop, and chilled him to the bone. But more than the sensation, it was the way Roxas looked at him, like this was just a temporary thing, like he knew Axel would come crawling back one day, and that was the sureness, the smugness, that Axel hated. It was bad enough to know that you were wrong, you didn’t need to know that he was right, too, but for all his graces, Roxas never quite learnt how to quiet the urge to say ‘I told you so’.

 

And then Axel came back, and Roxas had run into his arms like he’d never been gone, like there wasn’t a mile of baggage between them, like Axel wasn’t more drawn, dark circles under his eyes, skin bitten at the edges of his nails. The ‘I told you so’ was there, but more than anything, Roxas seemed to be saying that he finally had Axel back where he belonged and, for once, Axel didn’t have the energy to be contrary just for the hell of it. He wanted to be in Roxas’ arms, wanted the surety of someone who’d said ‘you’ll be back’ when he’d left, because Axel’s never been certain of a fucking thing in the whole twenty-something years he’s been on this useless planet. He’s never known who he is, what he’s for, why he’s there, and for a little while, it’s enough to know that he’s there to belong to Roxas.

 

So when the sunlight hits him just right, and Axel can see a million colours in Roxas, his Roxas, it doesn’t matter that thirty is so close that it’s staring him in the eyes, it doesn’t matter that he’s put on a few pounds and his hairline’s getting even more ridiculous. It doesn’t matter than he doesn’t get what’s cool anymore, that he doesn’t understand half the music that’s supposedly popular, that his job barely helps to keep them scraping by. It doesn’t matter that he’s gone through so many psych meds and therapists and courses that he almost thinks they’re making him more nuts in the process, or that sometimes he doesn’t want to take the pills, or that sometimes he wakes up in the night and cries, and there’s not a damn thing that can make him stop. Nothing matters but his Roxas, and the way he looks at Axel, like he still doesn’t think there’s a damn thing about love to be afraid of, like he still doesn’t know how it feels to have your heart broken and thrown away. Like he doesn’t know that Axel’s bad news, always has been, or maybe… just maybe, that he doesn’t care. That when Axel is staring at his sunlit Roxas, his everything, and can practically taste his heart pounding in his chest… just maybe, Roxas looks back, and sees something worthwhile. Something he wants to keep. Someone worth loving.


End file.
